


here's what i want to tell you [when your sadness is bent across your shoulders]

by governessattending (syballineInferno)



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Happy Ending, Love, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, father daughter bonding, frederick making concerned fatherly noises, severa being severa, severisms are the delight of my life, written in 3 hours from midnight to almost three am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 06:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1769011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syballineInferno/pseuds/governessattending
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His daughter was sitting alone, and she looked sad, clutching ale in one hand and sitting on a rock, ankles crossed and half frowning, half snarling as she repeatedly glanced over to the left and sighed. After three times of watching Severa sigh, throw back a drink and repeat, Frederick figured he should probably go intervene and comfort his daughter. </p><p>//Maribelle and Vaike get engaged. Severa pines. Frederick comforts. Maybe they're more alike in ways they'd rather not be than they'd like to admit. There are probably happy endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	here's what i want to tell you [when your sadness is bent across your shoulders]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aurumite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurumite/gifts).



> beta-ed by the lovely http://thebusinessendofasword.tumblr.com/ , aka FERP's lovely Sully. title attributed to elisabethhewer on tumblr. also, there are a few lines in here that are shoutouts to arthoure/fred mun. they know what they are.

It was a shock that no one had knocked over any torches yet. 

The camp was on the edge of a forest, not too far from town but not too close, a quiet clearing that had been set alight by the buzz of people. In all honesty, it had been Maribelle showing up at Lissa's tent with an engagement ring that had set off the string of events, and somehow they'd ended up here, a modest engagement party for Maribelle and Vaike.

They'd eaten earlier, Frederick blatantly ignoring the insistent wine pouring Lissa had been doing into Lon'qu's glass until the princess disappeared with her husband, and Cordelia chatting amicably to Chrom. Frederick had spent the entire time talking to Sully, acting like the flush on her cheeks was definitely from too much to drink and not the Exalt's attention.

[He knew and accepted that she may never get over Chrom, knew it before he'd even bought her a ring. That didn't mean he always had to  _like_ it, especially when his daughter talks of her still in love with him decades later.]

Cordelia had gone to bed an hour ago; it was long past midnight and she'd been swaying, so he helped her to their tent and kissed her goodnight, Vaike drunk enough to whistle despite how chaste it was. 

His daughter was sitting alone, and she looked sad, clutching ale in one hand and sitting on a rock. Her ankles were crossed and she was half frowning, half snarling as she repeatedly glanced over to the left and sighed. After three times of watching Severa sigh, throw back a drink and repeat, Frederick figured he should probably go intervene and comfort his daughter. 

_Daughter._

Even as he saw the proof, saw the ring he picked out so carefully for Cordelia on a cord around her neck, his hair and nose, Cordelia's eyes and smile, it was still hard to fathom. Cordelia had never even told him she loved him, had never talked about children. Frederick wouldn't have wanted to bring children into the world during wartime. 

But obviously they had, had created something that was so  _incredible_ , a beautiful daughter that was  _his_ and Cordelia's; not Chrom's, his. Maybe she'd never love him fully, but he had this. Had this family, had a strong, wonderful daughter. It made him long for creating a family, made him curious, but that would have to wait. They were at war.

"Are you alright, Severa?" Severa leaped a foot in he air, her twintails snapping as she turned her head. Perhaps he had snuck up on her a bit. 

"Drown me in a sack, Dad! When did you get there?" Her hands seemed to shake, and she looked so much more flushed up close, looked so much more like Cordelia. "You're too quiet without all the heavy, clinking armor you wear all the time!" There was a soft slur to her words, gentle but noticeable. Though she did have a point, the lack of his thick armor that he perpetually wore - currently replaced by a dress shirt and slacks - making him quieter, she should have seen him lurking in the general area, as he had for twenty minutes, in growing concern. 

"I've been around for awhile," Frederick looked at the bottle she'd been slugging back, the at the others at the base of the rock. She'd obviously inherited his alcohol tolerance; Cordelia couldn't hold hers at all. "Is something wrong? You keep looking to your left and sighing." As he spoke, he took a glance over her shoulder, where Tharja's daughter - Noire, that's right, Henry's pale hair cut short on her and a bow - and Lissa's son had been speaking. "Is it Owain?"

Severa choked, spluttered golden liquid. " _Owain?_ You think I'm sighing over  _Owain?_ " Severa's knuckles were white and her hands shook, but there was a brute honesty to her words instead of the cold posturing he found himself familiar. 

"Well," Frederick scratched at the back of his neck. "Am I wrong?"

"Owain," Severa shook her head, snorting. "is really not my type."

"Your type?" Frederick's nose crinkled in confusion. "Then what  _is,_ erm, 'your type'?" 

He needed to know who he may need to hurt in the future, after all, although he doubted Severa would appreciate the sentiment. The mildly homicidal love he felt for his daughter was unlike anything he'd ever felt before; he was absolutely prepped for hurting those who hurt the incredible woman he'd helped create. 

"Well," Severa said, then handed him an unopened bottle. "Before I say anything, you might want this."

That was warrant for concern. He opened it anyway.

"Severa?"

"My type is women," Severa blurted out, throwing back another drink. Frederick choked, unsure what to say. As he struggled with words, he took a small comfort in the acidic burn of alcohol as it hits the back of your throat.

"Severa.."

"I knew you'd be disappointed!" Severa blurted out, all white hot all of a sudden, pale knuckles and dewy eyes. "You were always disappointed in me. I was useless, I wasn't a pegasus knight or a knight, useless and vain and not prodigal -" she's stuttering, spluttering, and Frederick opens his mouth to object but she's not done. "You should melt me and drain me into a river."

 _That's a new one,_ the tipsy part of him thinks.

"Severa," he says. "You're not a disappointment. You have never been a disappointment. You just caught me off guard, that's all."

"You're saying that because I'm your daughter."

"I'm saying that because it's true," Frederick decides, against reason, to take another gulp. 

"Hmph," Severa says, pursing her lips in a way that is so insanely  _Cordelia_ that it hurts.

"So its, erm, Tharja's daughter that is troubling you?" He says, the alcohol he'd been slowly consuming throughout the night, nearly entirely at other's behest starting to sink in. Noire is twirling for Owain as they speak, a dress she'd gotten with Severa earlier that day at the nearby town, dark against her pale skin and shimmery, clinging to her curvy body. He'd nearly scolded Severa for the dresses the two had bought, Noire's dress and the pale blue dress his daughter was wearing, up to the neck but ending around the knee, but he'd never seen Severa smile quite the way she had when Noire wrapped her arms around Severa, pulling the shorter girl into a tight embrace, making his daughter flushed.

[In retrospect, he wasn't sure how he  _hadn't_ caught it]

"Hmph," Severa repeated. Her bottle was empty at this point, so she added it to her pile. Her silence was a confirmation enough.

The idea of Severa falling in love with Noire made his teeth grit, made his knuckles a little whiter. Not because they were both women [that would make Frederick a hypocrite, thinking of the nights before he fell for Cordelia, where instead of brief kisses exchanged with the fire haired woman keeping him by, it was brushed fingers with the tactician or Ch- never mind, that. There were some things he didn't want to think about again.] but the idea of Severa loving someone where they may love someone else, where the chance was slim that they'd ever fall for her - the idea of Severa being the Frederick to someone's Cordelia..

"How do you do it?" Severa asked, leaning her head on her father's broad shoulder as Noire sat down across the clearing, listening to Owain speak. 

"Hm?"

"How do you do it every day, knowing about mom and Chrom -"

"Exalt Chrom."

"Knowing that she might never lo.." Severa stopped herself. "How do you do it  _every day_ knowing.. that?"

Frederick wrapped an arm around his daughter, calloused fingers rubbing her shoulder comfortingly. "I don't know."

"Very helpful," Severa mumbled, leaning on her father. She yawned, rolling her neck. 

"Do you want me to help you back to your tent?" He asked. "I don't think this rock would be very comfortable to sleep on."

"I think I can make it," Severa said, but allowed Frederick to assist her in getting off the rock, him picking up the empty bottles and Severa taking a minute to steady herself. Noire and Owain had finished talking, Owain making - really, stumbling - his way towards his tent, and Noire... was making her way towards Severa. 

He turned away, to appear as if he weren't listening. Eavesdropping was morally wrong, he knew, but he was a little drunk and really, it doesn't count if it's just him watching out for his daughter, right?

"Severa!" Noire's voice was clear. "Can you help me unlace my dress? The corset's hard to reach.. I don't want to be a bother again, but.."

"U-um," Severa coughed. "Y-yeah, of course. Of course I will. In your tent?"

"Are you alright? Have you been drinking? You're stuttering..." Noire stepped closer, and as Frederick turned back, he was made acutely aware of his daughter's red cheeks, red as her mother's hair, and the fact that they could be against each other in seconds. 

"On-only a  _bit,_ really, I'm f-fine," Severa said, as Noire's mouth tugged into a concerned frown. 

"You're staying in my tent tonight," Noire informed her, seemingly oblivious to the way she was affecting Frederick's daughter. "Come on, I have some stuff to sober you up a bit and a hangover cure. Let's go. It can be like when we were kids!" She took Severa's hand and pulled her along gently. "Are you sober enough to undo a dress?"

"Of course I am!" Severa replied, glancing away from Noire's hand in hers, instead looking over at where Frederick and her had watched Noire and Owain. "Did you leave your bow over there while you were talking to Owain?"

Noire's eyes lit up in enlightenment. "Oh! I did. Severa, what would I ever do without you? I love you -" Noire stopped herself. "When you're being nice. I love you when you're being nice."

Hm.

Frederick, feeling like he was watching something private, tore his eyes away as Noire darted off to get her bow and take his daughter to her tent. He had to dispose of these bottles. 

Later that night, long after Severa and Noire had [hopefully] gone to sleep, Frederick slipped into his and Cordelia's tent, tugging off his dress clothes and sliding into bed beside his sleeping wife. He thought he saw her eyes flutter open as he entered, but perhaps it was just his imagination.

"I love you," he breathed, kissing her cheek and laying beside her. 

"Mm," Cordelia's eyes flickered open, startling him. "I love you too, Frederick.." she yawned, closing her eyes once more, before he could react.

He thought of what Severa had said about them in the future, stiff towards each other, of that she'd never told him she loved him before. Lucina had changed the past, they'd said. All the children had. As he wrapped an arm around Cordelia's svelte figure, he wondered if more had been fixed by their alterations than history's course. 

He wanted to think so.


End file.
